A Respectable Trade
by IoIngridWeaver
Summary: "There are two tragedies in life. One is to lose your hearts desire. The other is to find it."- George Bernard Shaw. Dan slowly but surely becomes the man he was born to be by leaving the man he was behind along with everything and everyone else. AUS5


Humphreys are people who know who they are and where they come from. This is something that has been drilled into his head by his father and his grandfather ever since the day he was born.

They have integrity. They have grit. They are no rich but they are not dirt poor. They were once dirt poor and have risen.

Humphreys remember where they come from. They remember the dust of Ireland and the forests of Germany and the fisheries of Liverpool. They remember and do not forget.

Dan Humphrey is twenty-one and his life has just come crashing down all around him into a million little pieces when he finally realizes something. He forgot. He has forgotten all of the little lessons his grandfather taught him and the man he once was.

He has lost it all in an attempt to get the girl he loves to be with him and only him. Blair Waldorf, a scared and spoilt little girl who can not choose where she belongs or who she wants. And Dan knows she is a girl because of what she has just done.

Spent the night with Chuck, the man who was almost his friend, the man whom he actually began to think he could someday call a friend. And then denied it to his face after he SAW them together. After he went to try and talk with Chuck about forgiveness and an olive branch all for HER sake. And then came the soul shattering image of their throws on the floor on the front foyer.

Days after in the sanctuary of the loft the packs his bags and does the one thing he has been told that he should never do by all of the Upper East Side. Run. But the night before Dan remembers something his grandfather told him. If you need to clear your head there is no shame in leaving. Get the Hell out of Dodge. But Humphreys do not run from their problems. They face them head on. But you can face the problem by leaving what is causing it behind.

And so he says goodbye to his father and leaves. He itches to write but can't find it in himself to write. The inspiration is gone and all he can write about is heartache and a dark hair woman who is ninety five pounds of girly evil.

Then Dan gets an idea and actually follows through with it. Throwing away his cell phone and credit cards he buys a beat down truck and begins in main. One week in every state of the continental US of A. and it is with the open road calling his name and the rain pattering through the broken window that he begins to rediscover who he is and what he thought was lost.

In Vermont the rediscovers his love of old rock and roll and in Memphis he gains a new appreciation for Elvis. In the Big Easy he helps build a house and discovers a hope and a strength for the future in a situation he might not of survived.

In Michigan he learns to fish and learns to love the solitude that comes with it. In Arkansas he drives a tractor and almost kills a cow and laughs at himself with the grumpy old farmer who is teaching him. He laughs so hard he sobs and for the first time in a long time he feels something where before there was only her. Now there is room for something more.

In the everglades he tastes reptile (never again) and in Texas he buys a nine gallon hat and feels ridiculous but also has never felt more at home in a simple Christian church and the bake off with the best food he has ever tasted. In California he finally learns to surf and hates it but crosses it off his bucket list anyways. In Seattle he get a guitar and tries to play it for the sake of his father and his own long hidden desire to make something as meaningful as a simple son.

Maybe it is the open air or the space from everything he has ever known. But Dan is beginning to change. He feels it in his bones and welcomes it with open arms. He cuts his hair and grows a semi permanent five o'clock shadow. He grows comfortable in old army boots and hiking shoes. He still reads the New Yorker and still has waffles. He still loves to read and watch movies.

But now he also sees the joys of running and runs a mile every day no matter where he has found himself. He gains muscle and is toned and more fit than ever. He finds himself getting into football and soccer and finds joy in a days hard work.

He is slowly but surely living to live with his regrets and his demons. His world is changing and his writing has never been better.

He writes a collection of short stories based on everything around him. About signing for his supper in a blues bar in Memphis and walking where Martin Luther King Jr did. About dipping his feet in the ocean and walking long the stony beaches of Maine and discovering the beauty of a storm.

He writes about a widow in Kansas who rents out a room just to have company and to fill the whole in her heart. He writes about the war veteran he meets in DC and the honor that bleeds from his pores among the graves at Arlington. He tells about the streets of Detroit and the mugger who nearly shot him and the wide open spaces of Montana and how the Big Sky Country calls to him in a way the concrete of NYC never did.

He tells his agent it is all he can give. And it is welcomed by the publishing world with open arms. Hailed as a collection of soul searching and the long forgotten wandering poet Dan slowly but surely begins to heal.

Nearly a year after he began Dan ends up in Alaska of all places. The rest of the country may be where he was learning to be who he was but it is under the mighty forest and the mighty sea that he finds himself.

With his paid and boots and will he gets a job on a fishing boat and learns about living pay check to pay check and about real life and hope and dreams and loss. And it is the eighteen months to the day he has left home he finally calls his father and tells him he will not be returning to the Big Apple. He then sends a final text message to his friends hoping they will understand and then throws his phone into the ocean. He lost himself once and he will not do it again.

Two years ago his heart broke the itch begins again and Dan heads south in a pick up once more. But instead he crosses the border and heads to Canada. So exploring the north he heads South and finds himself lost in the Rockies. It is here he settle in a small town called Bragg Creek and begins to write once more. And it is here Dan finally calls his family and talks with everyone he left behind.

Everyone but her. For Dan finally understands now what his grandfather meant when he said it is better to break your heart that to break your honror. Dan has done it once. He will not do it again.

And so it is in the shadows of the Rockies he begins to makes friends and to date once more and to breathe in and breathe out.

He has slowly but surely exorcized the ghost of Blair Waldorf out of his life.

Thousands of miles away Blair Bass can not say the same. She has everything she could ever want. A job as a fashion editor and a great husband and so much money she could bathe in it. But she is slowly but surely drowning in the ghost of Dan Humphrey. The man who left her behind and the man she can not forget.

*************just a weird plot bunny that was burning in my mind. Should the pairing be Dan/Serena or Dan/Juliet? *************


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